NORTH AMERICAN SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY POSTS DECEMBER 2019 BILLINGS

MILPITAS, Calif. — January 23, 2020 — North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.49 billion in billings worldwide in December 2019 (three-month average basis), according to the December Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 17.5 percent higher than the final November 2019 level of $2.12 billion, and is 17.8 percent higher than the December 2018 billings level of $2.11 billion.

“Monthly billings of North American equipment manufacturers reached a level not seen since June 2018,“ said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “The December surge in equipment billings reaffirms the strength of leading-edge logic and foundry investments.”

MILPITAS, Calif. — April 7, 2020 — For five days in the latter half of March, the pall of the heavy human and economic toll COVID-19 has exacted in China appeared to be lifting. The epicenter of Wuhan reported no new coronavirus infections through domestic transmission. And in an initial step to loosen its nationwide lockdown, China began reversing restrictions on travel within its borders.

Now, in another sign of progress, the region’s idled factory workforce is preparing to return to the production lines. Outside of Hubei province, home to Wuhan, most manufacturing workers are expected to be back on the job by the end of this month, with the proportion of manufacturing employees returning to work in Hubei cities except Wuhan reaching 70 percent by then, said Didier Chenneveau, Partner, Supply Chain Practice, McKinsey & Company, in a late-March webinar presented by the business consultancy and SEMI.

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McKinsey is also “seeing evidence of a rebound in demand led by China’s online sales” as rising consumer confidence and a surge in the popularity of work-from-home policies spur strong spending on laptop computers, Chenneveau said.

The turnaround stands in stark contrast to the unprecedented drop in demand McKinsey saw across retail and durable goods in China early in the year. Over the first two months, passenger car sales plunged 90 percent, smart phone receipts 40 percent and retail sales 21 percent, leading to what Chenneveau calls a whiplash effect that could disrupt supply chains as manufacturers and shipping companies scramble to meet pent-up demand once a recovery takes hold.

As the outlook for China’s factories and suppliers brightens, concerns are shifting to the ripple effect of its deep manufacturing pullback on demand for goods in the United States and Europe. Sharp disruptions to global supply chains caused by labor shortages and knotty logistics challenges have also become worrisome. And while China is buoyed by the prospect of normalizing its workforce and manufacturing capabilities, parts shortages are bottlenecking production. In the United States and Europe, where 60 percent of air freight is carried in cargo holds of passenger aircraft, logistics concerns loom large with the widespread flight groundings.

“Logistics must be a priority in any crisis war room because it’s a big challenge,” Chenneveau said.

Asia Semiconductor Supply Chain Impacts

In Asia, the semiconductor supply chain is working to overcome intractable challenges caused by COVID-19 including sourcing raw materials for chip manufacturing and maintaining assembly and test operations, Mark Patel, Sr. Partner & Semiconductor Practice Lead, McKinsey & Company, said at the webinar. Those problems cascade to foundries and IDMs even as they confront the compounding issue of a shortage of fab operators and engineers. Downstream, the inability to package, test and qualify products risks exacerbating the supply constraints.

Patel said another acute challenge is that most semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers are operating under restricted practices, making it harder to sustain engineering activities vital to new product introductions, new process development and capital equipment expansion. In the longer term, the supply chain fallout hold implications for product life cycles and investments in capacity and next-generation technology – factors that analysts will need to monitor in evaluating the economic impact.

Returning Workers Key to Economic Recovery

Issuing shelter-in-place orders have been an effective antidote to the spread of COVID-19 but a double-edged sword as nations worldwide sustain the economic blowback. Discretionary consumer spending on items such as automobiles has dropped by 45 percent globally so far this year, business investment has fallen and trade has seen a sharp slowdown, said Sven Smit, Chairman and Director at the McKinsey Global Institute, speaking at the webinar.

A lockdown for as little as a month can slash aggregate global GDP by as much as 10 percent, a scenario McKinsey expects to play out in the second quarter of 2020. The drop would be the deepest since World War II and larger than the plunge in the first quarter of the Great Depression, raising the question of how long governments can afford to keep workers holed up at home.

“The economic shock is unprecedented,” Smit said. “We’ve never sent people home to not work. Even in World War II, next to the front lines, people were harvesting food.”

China offers a potential blueprint for economic recovery. McKinsey estimates that China’s rigorous containment efforts could help its economy bounce back in as little as six months – a V-shaped rebound. Western nations generally have not been as forceful with their containment measures. For them, the fight against the pathogen could be prolonged, deepening the economic damage.

Yet even with the best protective lockdowns, a new challenge arises: The longer shelter-in-place orders remain in effect to contain the spread of the virus, the longer the economic impact drags on. “Until the path to return to work becomes clearer, people will not be confident to spend,” Smit said.

Confronted with that reality, governments worldwide must strike the delicate balance between safeguarding the lives of people – critical forces of economic growth through consumer spending – and limiting the economic shock. The faster the virus can be brought to heel, the softer the impact to economies around the world. And the stronger the return-to-work protocols in place once COVID-19 has been brought under control, the faster workers can get back to their jobs. Smit believes resolving both issues simultaneously is not only possible but necessary for a return to normalcy.

“That’s the imperative of our time,” he said.

For McKinsey’s latest insights on the coronavirus pandemic, visit its website, which is updated daily.

MILPITAS, Calif. – April 14, 2020 – Global silicon wafer market sales could dip if uncertainty surrounding the impact of COVID-19 to the semiconductor industry persists or climb on the strength of rebounding chip sales, SEMI said today in new quarterly report that lays out two wafer market scenarios for the second half of 2020.

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With the world continuing to combat the novel coronavirus, SEMI expects a drop in silicon wafer sales in the second half of 2020 with possible ripple effects on price negotiations in 2021. SEMI described the likely outcome in the new Silicon Wafer Market Monitor, which tracks wafer shipment dynamics including wafer shipments, supply and demand shifts, suppliers’ dynamics, and pricing trends and forecasts.
The question, however, remains whether the uncertainty sowed by COVID-19 will lead to the decline in silicon wafer demand or if the heavy impact will be confined to a few months. To hedge their bets, chipmakers in the second quarter of 2020 are expected to increase silicon wafer orders to build up safety stock to meet future demand, a move that should soften the impact on sales for the quarter.

If the pandemic erodes semiconductor demand well into the second half of 2020, silicon wafer shipments growth could continue through the second quarter before dipping in the third quarter. In this downbeat scenario, 300mm silicon wafer shipments in 2020 would be flat or see a slight decline despite a sizable second quarter jump, and 200mm and 150mm shipments would drop by 5 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

But if a robust industry recovery begins in the second half of 2020, the second quarter inventory buildup will help drive silicon wafer shipment growth. That uptrend will continue through the rest of 2020 as expectations rise that pent-up demand will drive a chip industry rebound.

The COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year extended a decline in total silicon wafer area that began after their October 2018 peak. Last year overall wafer shipments dropped 6.9 percent compared to 2018 after managing just 0.4 percent growth from 2017 to 2019. The 2019 declines in both silicon wafer shipments and revenue had given way to optimism for 2020 with rising expectations for normalizing inventory levels, memory market improvements, data center market growth and the 5G market takeoff.

About SEMI

SEMI® connects more than 2,100 member companies and 1.3 million professionals worldwide to advance the technology and business of electronics design and manufacturing. SEMI members are responsible for the innovations in materials, design, equipment, software, devices, and services that enable smarter, faster, more powerful, and more affordable electronic products. Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance), FlexTech, the Fab Owners Alliance (FOA) and the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) are SEMI Strategic Association Partners, defined communities within SEMI focused on specific technologies. Visit www.semi.org to learn more, contact one of our worldwide offices, and connect with SEMI on LinkedIn and Twitter.

North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts March 2020 Billings

MILPITAS, Calif. — April 23, 2020 — North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.21 billion in billings worldwide in March 2020 (three-month average basis), according to the March Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 6.8 percent lower than the final February 2020 level of $2.37 billion, and is 20.1 percent higher than the March 2019 billings level of $1.84 billion.

MILPITAS, Calif. — May 4, 2020 — Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments rose 2.7 percent to 2,920 million square inches in the first quarter of 2020, compared with fourth-quarter 2019 shipments of 2,844 million square inches, but dropped 4.3 percent year-over-year, the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) reported in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.

"Global silicon wafer shipments rebounded slightly in the first quarter of 2020 after declining for one year,” said Neil Weaver, chairman SEMI SMG and vice president, Product Development and Applications Engineering at Shin Etsu Handotai America. “However, with the disruptions caused by the coronavirus, market uncertainty will prevail in the upcoming quarters.”

North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts April 2020 Billings

MILPITAS, Calif. — May 21, 2020 — North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.26 billion in billings worldwide in April 2020 (three-month average basis), according to the April Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 2.2 percent higher than the final March 2020 level of $2.21 billion, and is 17.2 percent higher than the April 2019 billings level of $1.93 billion.

"April billings of North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers reflect healthy equipment demand,” said Ajit Manocha, SEMI president and CEO. “The industry is performing well under extraordinary conditions, though uncertainty persists due to COVID-19 concerns and rising geopolitical tensions.”

The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.